Then followed the task of selecting a librarian, and the obvious choice was Mr. Dexter, a hatter by trade and already in charge of the West Cambridge Social Library. This was a subscription library, founded in 1807, and consisting mainly of volumes of sermons and "serious reading." The question of the librarian's salary was the next care, for the state law authorizing towns to appropriate tax money for libraries was yet ten years in the future. At town meeting, in 1837, however, one of the trustees called attention to the clause in Dr. Learned's will which provided that others, beside children, might use the library by paying a sum for membership and an annual assessment. "Why should not the town pay the tax, and thus make it free to all the inhabitants?" he asked. And this was done. The town at once appropriated thirty dollars for the library, and the right to take books was extended to all the families in town. From this time the institution has been a free town library, the earliest of its class in Massachusetts. The little collection of books for the West Cambridge Juvenile Library traveled to its first home on a wheelbarrow. "Uncle" Dexter would make hats during the week, and on Saturday afternoons open the library for the children. Three books were the limit for a family, and they could be retained for thirty days. That the books were actually read by the children is vouched for by those who remember the library from its beginning. Even free access to the shelves was permitted for a while. But we come to a period, later, when the by-laws declare, "No person except the librarian shall remove a book from the shelves." One would like to know just what those books were for which one-half of that precious bequest was first spent. The earliest extant catalog of the juvenile library is dated 1855, though there exists an earlier list (1835) of the Social Library. Tradition has handed down the names of two books said to be in the first collection, but one of these is certainly of later date. The first is still in existence, a copy of the "History of Corsica," by James Boswell. One who as a boy read this book, years ago, in the West Cambridge Juvenile Library, recalled it with delight when he visited Corsica years afterward. The other title, mentioned as belonging to the first library, is "The history of a London doll." But this delightful child's story, by Richard Hengist Home, was not published until 1846. Some of the Waverley novels are also remembered as being among the earliest purchases. Of course, we realize that books which "will best promote useful knowledge and the Christian virtues" in school children are not necessarily children's books. So we may be tolerably sure that Rollins' and Robertson's histories, as well as Goldsmith and Irving, would have appeared in the catalog had there been one.